I love to hear of 'behind the scenes' tricks, secrets and in-jokes that are used when making movies.
I'm not talking about goofs or deliberate mistakes (there is a thread for those already), more like the things you often pick up when listening to directors commentaries on DVDs and the like.
Here are a few which I have heard:
Terminator 2 - In the scene where Sarah Connor is removing the processor from the Terminator's head, you see a 'mirror' image of her doing it.
In actual fact, it is not a mirror, what you see is Linda Hamilton apparently removing the processor, whilst the girl nearest to you (who's face you don't see), is in fact Linda Hamilton's real-life sister, working on a prop of Arnie's head.
The only problem was trying to accurately synchronize the movement between the two of them (If you study very-closely, you will see that they aren't 'quite' in synch).
Close encounters of the third kind: There is a scene where the little boy goes downstairs because he hears a noise.
He goes into the kitchen and at first looks scared, then starts to smile.
They were able to get this effect by having one of the film crew dress in a gorilla suit (for the scare), then remove the head to reveal who he was (which brought the smile).
Of course the crew member wasn't seen by the camera, so it produced the right effect on the little boy's face.
Gladiator: There is a fight scene where Maximus slices the head off an opponent with two swords.
Director Ridley Scott was sure that the censors wouldn't allow the decapitation to be passed because of the gruesome nature of it.
Because the opponent was wearing a full-head helmet it wasn't 'apparent' the opponent was actually a man and so lessened the impact and so didn't need to be cut.
I'm not talking about goofs or deliberate mistakes (there is a thread for those already), more like the things you often pick up when listening to directors commentaries on DVDs and the like.
Here are a few which I have heard:
Terminator 2 - In the scene where Sarah Connor is removing the processor from the Terminator's head, you see a 'mirror' image of her doing it.
In actual fact, it is not a mirror, what you see is Linda Hamilton apparently removing the processor, whilst the girl nearest to you (who's face you don't see), is in fact Linda Hamilton's real-life sister, working on a prop of Arnie's head.
The only problem was trying to accurately synchronize the movement between the two of them (If you study very-closely, you will see that they aren't 'quite' in synch).
Close encounters of the third kind: There is a scene where the little boy goes downstairs because he hears a noise.
He goes into the kitchen and at first looks scared, then starts to smile.
They were able to get this effect by having one of the film crew dress in a gorilla suit (for the scare), then remove the head to reveal who he was (which brought the smile).
Of course the crew member wasn't seen by the camera, so it produced the right effect on the little boy's face.
Gladiator: There is a fight scene where Maximus slices the head off an opponent with two swords.
Director Ridley Scott was sure that the censors wouldn't allow the decapitation to be passed because of the gruesome nature of it.
Because the opponent was wearing a full-head helmet it wasn't 'apparent' the opponent was actually a man and so lessened the impact and so didn't need to be cut.
